


Anti Disestablishment

by teB360



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Bisexuality, Brooding, Drabble, Gay, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Unrequited Love, bi!Arthur, moody arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-29 04:32:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16737157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teB360/pseuds/teB360
Summary: It's midnight and Arthur catches a dark shape watching him bathe in the river, but for some reason he says nothing and sacrifices his privacy for some peace and quiet. But deep down, in a twisted and forgotten tunnel plummeting down into his soul, Arthur had buried that unnatural feeling that shuddered so violently through him. He didn’t allow himself to admit the true reason he said nothing that night.Drabblish fic. Kind of a work in progress turning into something else.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit of a drabble that kind of just happened with no previous planning. Triggers are some homophobia and general moodiness of Arthur.  
> Anyway enjoy & leave a comment if you liked it!

The sun beat down hard on his opened journal. Arthur stared in contemplation, tapping the end of his pencil against his bent knee. He was sitting by the river. The water was still and dark green in colour. Birds chirruped up ahead in the trees. The silence filled him with warmth.

The gang were close by, getting about their daily chores and shenanigans. Planning a robbery probably. Arthur didn’t know, he was just the muscle. His part to play usually came last.

He was deep in thought, thinking about the day before. It had been almost midnight and he had been bathing in the river. He liked to go when everyone was asleep. It was private, but also more peaceful. He was stripped naked and wading in the cool water under the moonlight.  
He remembered hearing the snap of a twig and turning around to see what he thought was John. Arthur paid him no mind and expected him to turn around to leave, but he didn’t. Under the cover of darkness, John just sat down on a rock and watched.

Normally Arthur would have said something, antagonised him or told him to get lost. But he didn’t want to break the peace.  
The crickets hummed loudly and the sound of water splashed gently around him as he washed himself. The noises around him were all he could bear. So he sacrificed his privacy for silence.

Although deep down, in a twisted and forgotten tunnel plummeting down into his soul, Arthur had buried that unnatural feeling that shuddered so violently through him. He didn’t allow himself to admit the true reason he said nothing that night. 

He liked it. 

He liked it so much that when he realised John wasn’t leaving, he felt hot flushes swell in his stomach, travelling down to his nether regions. He stifled the feeling, but couldn’t forget the shame that coursed through his veins. And yet he continued to say nothing to stop the situation.

The feeling of shame remained knotted in his stomach. Arthur’s mind slowed back into reality as a cool breeze crossed the river and kissed his cheeks. 

He began to write his thoughts, detailing what had happened that night. It was hard to write about it, and how he felt. So hard he had to stop just has he got to the part about how that moment made him feel. 

He was due to be hung if he were caught by the law. Robberies. Murder. Assault. He didn’t need unnatural behaviour tacked on the end. 

A deep, throbbing and powerful sense of dread filled him as he contemplated how the gang would react if they read his journal. They’d kick him out for sure. But John? John would be utterly disgusted with him. 

Or would he? He did sit and watch him bathe. Maybe he was afflicted with the same perversion? 

Arthur slammed his journal shut. “I’m not afflicted by anything. I’m just lonely.” Hearing the words out loud did nothing to change the sense of fear that dwelled inside of him. 

“Lonely? Well I hear Mary’s in town.” It was Charles. He squatted next to Arthur, eyes scanning the river carefully as he so often did. 

“Mary?” The weight on his chest had lightened at the sound of her name. He had almost forgotten the dominating sense of shame that overwhelmed his being.

Charles pushed a letter into his hand. It was crumpled and the seal had been broken. Arthur shot him a look, to which Charles raised his hands up to portray innocence. “It wasn’t me, Karen and Uncle had already gotten to it before I managed to snatch it off them.”

“How much of it did they read out loud before you got it?”

Charles flushed. That was all the answer Arthur needed to know. He grumbled audibly. “Oughtta teach y’all some respect.” He said, shaking his head as he opened the letter and read it quickly. 

“She didn’t read all of it.”

“No matter to me. I’ll go have a nice and friendly word with her and Uncle soon.” Arthur tucked his journal into his satchel as he climbed to his feet and headed to his horse.

“You’re heading off now?” Charles asked in surprise. “The sun’s about to set.”

“You heard me, I’m feelin’ lonely.” Arthur made a show of shrugging his shoulders as he continued his way to where the horses were hitched.

Charles remained where he was, kicking dirt beneath his foot as a frown crossed his mouth. “Well, be safe then.” He muttered bitterly once Arthur was out of earshot.


	2. Chapter 2

Charles wasn’t sure what had possessed him to follow him. It had to be midnight and the camp ground was saturated with silence. He was leaning against a tree trunk by the fire half asleep when he noticed Arthur grab his lamp and head out of camp that night.

“What are you up to, Arthur Morgan.” He wondered to himself as he leaned against the solid dark tree before him. Suspicion ran through his mind right up until he realised that Arthur was stripping and then wading into the river to wash.

He watched as Arthur scooped up a puddle of water and poured it over his head. The water dripped down his neck and chest before he repeated the action and began to scrub his hair. For some reason Charles couldn’t look away. He felt a small shred of guilt; at first for assuming the worst when he witnessed Arthur leaving the camp, and now for invading his privacy.

Why couldn’t he look away?

Maybe It was because Arthur was doing a normal, simple routine that he’d never seen him do before. His tough guy attitude was stripped off along with his clothes. Arthur was alone with just himself and his thoughts. Or so he thought.

This was Arthur at a pure moment. The baggage of life, of being a criminal on the run and a tough guy gunslinger were absent. But the more Charles thought on this, the more he began to wonder about Arthur’s true nature.

There was something else about him that Charles hadn’t let himself clearly consider before.

The moonlight shone down on him, highlighting the planes of his body, the breadth of his shoulders and the squareness of his jaw.

He was utterly a beautiful man.

An outside force seemed to make Charles take a step out of the protection of the woods. He stood on a twig that corrupted the serenity of the night.

Arthur snapped his head towards him, searching in the dark for the source of the noise.

Charles stood stock still for a moment, waiting for Arthur to say something. But he said nothing.

Heart beating hard in his chest, Charles continued to step forward into view and sat down on a nearby rock, daring to say nothing.

Arthur watched for a moment, hands stirring in the water beside him. The sound of crickets weren’t enough to drown out the drumming of his heart in his ears.

After a few lengthy seconds, Arthur continued to wash himself and Charles continued to watch.  
He wasn’t focusing so much on the aspect of invading one’s privacy. He was lost in thought, wondering and considering. Arthur was complex to him. Charles had everyone else in the camp figured out, but Arthur had so much depth to him that Charles knew he’d only scratched the surface of.

So much heart and soul into one body.

He’d been noticing Arthur a lot more lately. The way he’d joke around with everyone at camp, his loyalty, and how he’d do anything for his friends. How he’d put on an act around people he didn’t know too well. His true nature was always hidden under a bushel while in foreign territory.

Everyone else was pretty straight forward about who they were. Their hopes and feelings plastered on them plain for the world to see. Aside from Dutch, maybe.  
Perhaps that’s where Arthur got it from?

Charles disappeared into the dark, quiet as the wind, and tucked himself into his bedroll for the night, mind deep in thought. His heart leapt and his mind raced with thoughts of Arthur that burned into the back of his eyelids as he drifted off to sleep.

Towards the evening the next day he was sitting alone, preparing some new arrows to go hunting with when Karen began waving something in her hand, Uncle following close behind.

“To my dear sweet Arthur – “ She read out loud with a mischievous giggle. Charles’s ears pricked up at the mention of Arthur’s name as she continued to read.

It must have been from Mary. A knot tied itself in Charles’s stomach.

Uncle was hooting and laughing along as Karen read out loud the paragraph of the letter. Charles knew how all the women in the camp felt about Mary. He assumed it was a feeling of jealousy on their part. He hadn’t met Mary or even known what she looked like, but he assumed that she must be stunning if a man like Arthur was interested in her.

The knot in his stomach tightened at the thought, and a wave of heat forced its way into his chest.

Was he jealous?

It was only Arthur. That moment the night before meant nothing.

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Charles snatched the letter off Karen who protested angrily as she was in the middle of describing Mary’s burning feelings for Arthur. Uncle protested too, but Charles ignored both of them, storming towards the river, letter in hand.

He was nervous about going near Arthur after the night before, but he knew he did the wrong thing. He knew he deserved whatever Arthur was going to say or do to him.

Except he said nothing. Charles gave him the letter and Arthur rode off to see Mary straight away.

 _“I’m not afflicted by anything. I’m just lonely.”_ He had said to himself before he gave him the letter.

What did he mean? Was he really so lonely that he had to rush off to see Mary, or was it to escape something?  
Charles frowned deeply at the thought, guilt chambering his heart.

"Well, be safe then."


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur loved Mary. He knew that when a stole a glance of her while they were at the theatre together. Shrouded in darkness, she still looked beautiful. He loved the way her eyes lit up as the host of the show announced the next act.

What he was feeling the other day - how his body reacted to the thought of John in the dark watching him in the river, almost forgotten. Almost.

Mary was a nice distraction, sure. She still had his heart, maybe. But she’d never made him feel the way he felt in the river.

After the show Arthur looped his arm through Mary’s and escorted her to her hotel. They were laughing, giggling and reminiscing about old times and their past relationship.

It would never work between them again. Not with the price on his head and the law hounding after him like a dog with a bone. No matter how much they both might have wanted it. The both of them knew that and neither could forget that sombre feeling that laced every smile and any shred of warmth between them.

“Oh Mary how I’ve missed you.” Arthur admitted, the words spilling out of him like water. He found Mary’s eyes and held his gaze to them. Brown and warm, like the earth. Sadness filled them.

“Run away with me, Arthur.” She clasped his broad hands in his.

It was more of a wish than a suggestion. They both knew that and eventually they parted ways.

Arthur made camp outside of the city in the woods and pulled out his journal. He drew Mary carefully, trying to capture her personality through the lines of his pencil. But it felt empty. His love for her was one thing but the more detail he added to the drawing the less he wanted to finish it. He felt empty because he knew that they were never going to be together.

He stopped the pencil, staring hard at the drawing as though trying to look for something that wasn’t there. His thoughts fell back onto the night before in the river and his skin began to crawl.

Turning the page he sketched the man in the dark watching him, from memory.

John. It was dark and he didn’t see his face but he just knew it had to be John.

Arthur closed his journal. He didn’t allow himself to study his sketch. He’d made a slip up like this before. Long ago. He was the true reason John ran away for a year to begin with. Arthur just couldn’t help himself. He was born to sin, that much was true. He’d already broken one commandment, so he might as well break them all. What did it matter, anyway? He was already going to hell.

That was his reasoning when he kissed John all those years ago. Alone together in the woods, their bodies illuminated by the warm glow of the fire light. John had kissed him back but they never went much further than that.  They never talked about it. In fact John didn’t talk to Arthur at all for a week, and then suddenly he was gone.

Arthur wanted to be angry, he really did. But all he felt was the familiar sense of shame.

When John came back it took months for them to talk again. John made it very clear about how he felt about what they did. He could see it in his face any time Arthur was near. That look of disgust.

It hurt.

But John had kissed him back. It made no sense to Arthur. But he knew just to let it be, not to think about it. He’d made mistakes before, and this was just another. He couldn’t let himself slip up again.

But he was drowned with confusion. He had feelings for Mary. But there was also John. It didn’t make any sense.

Back at the main camp the next morning the women were asking him how Mary was.

“She’s fine.” Arthur drawled conversationally. He was brushing his horse down methodically. Using as an excuse not to meet anyone in the eye in case they could read his mind.

Mary-Beth sniffed in response, but it was Karen who spoke. “She’s always been too ‘hoity-toity’, Arthur.”

Arthur stopped brushing and glared daggers at Karen. Drink in her hand, of course. “How about you shut yer mouth and learn what manners are, Karen. I heard ‘bout you and Uncle readin’ my letters. Before you come up here with yer unwanted opinions, maybe understand that I don’t give a fuck what you think and stay out of my privacy.”

That seemed to strike a nerve. Her face flushed and she took a deep swig of her bottle to stifle whatever she was about to say. Or maybe to give her courage. Arthur didn’t know as Dutch intervened, Mrs. Grimshaw on his tail with her arms folded.

“I think that’s enough from you two. Arthur come with me, we’ve got a robbery to plan. Karen, put down that God-Damned bottle and go with Mrs. Grimshaw.”

Mrs. Grimshaw began to lecture Karen but Arthur and Dutch were already out of ear shot.

They met with Charles and Lenny by the makeshift table in the centre of camp. There was a map spread out across its surface, the two other men poring over it. Hosea was nearby smoking a cigar. Everyone else was busy at work.

“Found a gang house nearby that we’re gonna rob.” Said Lenny with a massive grin. “I did some scouting and they’re sitting on a bit of gold and supplies.”

Charles was busy testing the point of his arrows. “There are a few sentries in the woods. I think we should take a quiet approach, maybe get in through the back. Take them unawares.”

“How many sentries we talkin’?” Arthur asked. “And how many of us are goin’?”

“I think we’ll be fine with just the three of us.” Lenny said, glancing between Charles and Arthur. “There are seven sentries exactly, I made sure to be thorough. The O’Driscoll’s there are few. Their numbers are thinning, now with the Pinkerton’s on their tail.”

“Will Colm be there?” It was Dutch, his voice domineering.

“No. I don’t think so.”

Dutch hummed to himself, rubbing his chin in consideration. “Very well then. If he is there I’d like to be the one to put a bullet through him. If you find him, bring him to me. Alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never seen an actual bisexual character within the fanfiction community for any fandom I've been apart of. It's either divided by straight or gay.  
> I can see Arthur as a brooding bisexual. I know how confusing it is at first when we are conditioned to believe we can only be one or the other. Or in Arthur's case - due to the time it's set in - there can only be one socially accepted sexuality.  
> Anyway hope you enjoyed, leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur, Lenny and Charles rode out together. They drifted between trees and took the beaten path through the woods, separating only when they were close enough to the mark.

 Lenny was to take the forward approach. He was going to get in and distract them. Arthur was going to cover him from the side while Charles took out the sentries and the guards from the back. He was going to thin their numbers and meet Arthur and Lenny out the front to pick the rest off.

 Charles left his horse well-hidden a fair distance away and crept towards the looming homestead, shadowed by the greenery. Drawing out his bow he immediately nocked and loosed with practiced precision, taking out several guards from a distance. They collapsed suddenly, unheard by the rest before Charles finished them off, one by one.

 He continued to creep forward to the rim of the tree line. He was hidden well enough by shadow so he used his binoculars to survey the perimeter. He could see Lenny, arms out wide in a friendly, non-threatening pose as he approached the O’Driscoll’s. They were ready to fight if they had to. Lenny knew that too, Charles determined. He walked towards them slowly and carefully, but Charles couldn’t hear what he was saying.

 He spotted Arthur further back, hiding behind a large rock, sniper at the ready.

Charles had six sentries to his current body-count, and he remembered Lenny saying there were seven exactly. He eyed off the trees around him, zooming in with his binoculars but saw nothing except wildlife. He eyed the house. There were about nine men that he could see, maybe more. Some were watching Lenny intently, others getting about their daily chores, unaware.

 Before Charles could decide his next move the shrill bark of gunfire dissolved the tense silence. Charles snapped his head to the direction of the sound.

 The seventh sentry found them.

 His heart sank as he watched blood spray onto the rock Arthur was hiding behind. But with unnatural speed, Arthur shot the sentry clean through his head with his pistol.

 Gunfire repeated. The O’Driscoll’s were alerted. Lenny ducked for cover and Arthur continued to shoot despite his apparent injury.

 Charles put his binoculars away, replacing them with a stick of dynamite. The time for subtly was over, he thought as he lit the stick and threw it at the group of men by the campfire nearby. The explosion was loud, but Charles was already gone by the time they’d realised what happened. He was already deep in the woods, shooting the enemies in the back with his bow as they searched for him. He was making his way around the other side of the house, silent as a mouse but deadly as a snake.

He threw poisoned daggers at the men shooting at Lenny and Arthur, slit the throats of people who didn’t hear him coming and threw dynamite at the group of men who poured out of the house like ants.

He scooped up a repeater off one of his victims and began to shoot at the hip at the rest of the men.

Suddenly there was a white hot pain firing through Charles’s head. Before he knew it his knees had hit the ground. Had he been shot?

Before any other thought rushed through his mind, an echoing chamber burst through his ears. There was blood suddenly covering him and a dull thump as a man collapsed dead beside him. Charles saw Arthur nod at him, smoke pooling out of his pistol. Charles climbed back to his feet with force, staring at the corpse and then back at Arthur, who’d saved him. 

“No need to thank me, partner.” He said, holstering his weapon. “That all of ‘em, Lenny?”

“Let’s go in and find out.” Lenny responded, chipper as ever. His white  shirt was stained with blood and he’d lost his straw hat. Sweat filmed his neck and forehead but his demeanour was energetic.

Charles composed himself from the sudden shock, adrenaline settling in his veins. His heart was still racing, but he took a few deep, calming breaths. He glanced at Lenny and Arthur and then at the house. There was a still silence in the forestry around them. The house rose above them, shadowed by the trees and the setting sun. It seemed to glare at them with an unwelcoming presence.

“How’s your arm?” He asked Arthur. He was looking pale, a pained grimace marring his features.

“I’ll be alright. I think he just grazed me.” Arthur tried to make a show of flexing the injured arm but pain raked through him, and he stiffened.

“The sooner we get out of here the better.” Charles said. He felt uneasy. “Then we can take a proper look at that wound. I might have some salve for it.”

There was nothing odd about the interior of the house. It may have been run down with creaking floors and vines that crawled across the peeling paint of the walls, but it didn’t look out of place for a ramshackle house in the middle of the woods. Yet Charles did not feel comfortable. The others didn’t seem to sense that anything was wrong as they busied themselves searching.

They’d spent the next thirty minutes scouring the building and the bodies for supplies and money, aiming to get in and out as quick as they could. Charles was relieved when they’d finally left and made camp several leagues away from the site of the shoot-out.

The silence felt long as they warmed themselves by the fire. They shared a bottle of whiskey and cooked some rabbits they’d caught, but it wasn’t until after everyone had ate that Charles felt like talking.

“Did anyone else think there was something… odd about the house we just robbed?” 

Arthur and Lenny each looked up at him. Arthur had a half-eaten slice of meat skewered through his knife, while Lenny paused carving crosses in his bullets.

“Odd? What do you mean?”

“I just have a bad feeling about it. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone there.”

“It’s done now, Charles. We’ve already gone and robbed it and we’re still alive, ain’t we?” Arthur took a bite of meat and swallowed thoughtfully. “But if there were something wrong about that place I think we should steer clear and keep an eye out tonight in case anyone comes looking for us. You’re usually right about these things, Charles.”

 Charles felt suffocated by the woods and couldn’t wait to go back to the main camp. It was unlike himself to feel this way about the woods, but he managed to distract himself by convincing Arthur to show him the wound on his arm.

 With an exasperated sigh Arthur unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it down over his right shoulder, revealing the summer-browned and freckled skin and a semi-circle shaped wound that marred his flesh. Arthur had been right about it just being a graze. It didn’t look too bad and the bleeding had stopped.

“Pass me that whiskey, Lenny.” He said, and he obliged immediately, watching as Charles splashed some of the liquid over the wound.

“Ouch, God-Damn it Charles what did you do that for?” Arthur grumbled.

“Should have warned you it was going to sting.” Charles smirked and reached into his satchel to retrieve the salve he’d previously promised Arthur. “Here, use this every day until the wound is closed.”

Arthur accepted the canister. It was a repurposed pomade tin. He opened it up and smelled the contents. “Jesus, what is that?” He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Yarrow mostly, crushed into a pulp and thickened with goose grease. Here, you only need a little bit.” Charles dipped his finger into the tin and smoothed a pea sized amount of the salve into the wound. To Charles’s surprise, Arthur sat with no argument. “It should prevent infection and help with the bleeding.” 

“Well, thanks Charles.” Arthur smiled, buttoning his shirt back up and placing the tin in his bag. “Now everyone will smell me comin’ for a mile and hopefully run the other way.”

 Lenny laughed heartily at this. He’d reacquired the whiskey and was starting to feel tipsy. “I’m glad you’re alright, Arthur.” He said, and then turned to Charles. “Can you teach me how to make salves like that?”

“Only if you let me wear your straw hat some time.” Charles grinned.

“You did good, kid.” Arthur patted Lenny on the shoulder. “Gonna make a fine criminal outta you yet.” He said. Arthur and Charles exchanged a smirk.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur awoke abruptly. The smell of smoke was strong from the dying campfire and his back ached from his bedroll. Charles was asleep, leaning against the trunk of a tree, but Lenny’s bedroll was empty.

“Lenny?” He asked, but was met but the hooting of owls and chirruping of crickets. Dread curled in his stomach. “Charles, wake up. Lenny’s gone.”

 

Charles awoke slowly, stretching his arms and legs. “Gone?” He said sleepily. The memory of the house they robbed and the sense of unease that festered inside of him suddenly returned. Something was wrong.

 

The two searched the camp and Charles found a boot print in the mud. “Someone’s been here.”

 

“O’Driscoll’s? I didn’t see any, and normally they woulda gone after us shootin’, if there were any left.”  Arthur slung his rifle over his shoulder as he spoke and kicked dirt over the fire to put the embers out.

 

“That’s the thing. Something felt wrong about that robbery.” Realisation suddenly struck Charles. “Lenny said there weren’t that many people at the gang house, that Colm’s numbers were thin. But there were at least twenty men, maybe more at that house. And normally plenty more of them come out of the woods when we start to make a bit of noise, but this time they didn’t. It was too easy.”

 

“I don’t get what you’re sayin’. I still got shot, you nearly got killed. Maybe Colm’s numbers really are thinnin’, but twenty men is certainly a lot to hole up in a dump like that.”

 

“That O’Driscoll had you at point blank. He could of shot you through the head and you’d have been none the wiser. But he didn’t. I don’t think he was trying to kill you.”

 

“And what about the guy that hit you in the head?”

 

“It would have been easier if he just shot me instead. I think that robbery was a trap.” Charles began to study the earth again, eyes straining in the dark for a sign. “We don’t have much time. Whatever they want with Lenny, it can’t be good. Ah, the trail goes through here.”

Arthur followed Charles into the woods, the two keeping low to the ground.

 

“So you think the whole purpose they was there was to kidnap one of us? Or lure us out here in the dark to kill us off one by one. Wouldn’t it have been smarter if they just stayed silent and followed us back to the main camp?”

 

“I think they underestimated us and believed twenty men would be enough to maybe kidnap all of us and send Dutch running straight to Colm.”

 

“Where did Lenny even learn about this place?”

 

“He didn’t say, and I didn’t think to ask.”

 

Pain burned through Lenny’s head like wildfire. His vision was blurry, face sticky with blood. His nose must have been broken because it throbbed violently. He tried to touch his face but realised his hands and feet were bound, the rope scratching harshly against his flesh.

 

 _“You got the wrong one.”_ Came an Irish voice from somewhere nearby. Lenny strained his ears to hear. _“I said_ don’t _kidnap the black one.”_

_“But you said – “_

_“Colm wanted Arthur. Morgan. You feckin’ gobshite.”_

 

A glowing light filled his vision as one of the O’Driscoll’s held up a kerosene lamp over Lenny’s form. Black boots with rusted spurs stopped before his eyes.

 

“He’s just a kid, Callum, and you said he’s the wrong one. But did ya still haf’ to beat him so bad?”

 

“He’s a Van Der Linde boy, Seamus. He’s no kid. I just hope he’s important enough for Dutch or least Arthur to come running.” He sighed, crouching down and bringing the lamp closer for a better inspection of his handy work.

 

“He’s a bloody pulp. It’s unnecessary. –‘sides, shouldn’t we be saving our energy for Dutch or Arthur when they come?”

 

Callum’s face was grizzled and scarred heavily. There was a long, deep, healed over slash mark that rose across the bridge of his nose, ending in his right cheek. His beard was short and bristly, and his eyes a cold, piercing blue that sank fear deep into Lenny’s chest.

 

After a long, surveying stare at Lenny, Callum finally stood. “I have plenty of energy.” He said, and kicked Lenny hard in the ribs. He felt a crack and let out a cry in pain, tears stinging his eyes. With a snort of a laugh Callum walked off into the dark, back to their camp.

 

Seamus stayed for a few more seconds, his presence given away by the glow of his own lamp. He said nothing, and left when he heard Callum call his name.


End file.
